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Glamour Girls for the Middle Class

People tend either to love or hate the Goldscheider ceramics made in Vienna from 1885 to 1938. The gaily painted female figurines from the 1920s that depict Hollywood actresses like Louise Brooks or exotic dancers like the Budapest-born Dolly Sisters are unquestionably an acquired taste. Shown in dance poses and skimpy costumes, these terra-cotta and faience figures represent glamour to some, schmaltz to others. It’s almost as if these slender, graceful characters were voguing.

“The figures are so kitschy you could almost love them,” said a German visitor walking through the exhibition “Goldscheider Ceramics — A World Brand From Vienna” at the Leo Baeck Institute, part of the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th Street in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. (The show runs through April 7.)

The ceramic statues are from the collection of Kathryn Hausman, president of the Art Deco Society of New York. Many of them capture the avant-garde dances of the 1920s, with titles like “Captured Bird,” “Harem Dancer,” “Lady With a Fan” or “Tightrope Walker.”

“The Goldscheider figures are an important expression of femininity in the modern woman,” said Ms. Hausman, who has collected 50 of them in the last 30 years.

As Robert E. Dechant writes in “Goldscheider: History of the Company and Catalogue of Works” (Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2007), “Woman in all her wiles was the dominant theme.”

Goldscheider figurines were popular in Europe until World War II. At least 9,000 models were produced in various styles, from the historical revivalism of the late 1800s to Art Nouveau in the late 1890s to Art Deco in the 1920s and ’30s.

“These figurines are very accessible,” said Renata Stein, the curator of the institute. “They were designed for middle-class homes and were popular among people who liked to transcend their own narrow circumstances with a little glamour.”

The Goldscheider factory was a family business. “It is the typical immigrant success story,” said Ms. Stein, who has organized wall panels illustrating the social and political upheaval in Vienna during the decades of the company’s greatest popularity. “The family arrived in Vienna from Bohemia in 1885 and in 12 years had an international ceramics company, with branches in Leipzig, Paris and Florence. We forget that Vienna was cutting edge in 1900.”

The Nazis took over the Goldscheider business in Vienna in 1938, and the family emigrated to America, starting a new factory in Trenton, N.J. In 1950 the Vienna company was returned to the family, but the factory there closed in 1954.

The subjects of the statues range from Gypsies and shepherds to Goethe, Mozart and Wagner to kings like Henry VIII. By the 1890s, the emphasis was on Orientalism, with figurines depicting Arabs, Berbers and North Africans in native costume. These were “fantasy objects,” Mr. Dechant writes.

While they have neither the charm nor the technical mastery of Meissen porcelain figures from the 18th century, the mass-produced statues were well made: molded, fired and carefully painted freehand in oil paint. Such craftsmanship may explain why today they sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

RESULTS IN PALM BEACH

You don’t have to be a P. T. Barnum to produce a successful art and antiques show these days, but it helps. Last week David and Lee Ann Lester revived the American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Lester said the fair had a record 24,000 visitors during its run, Feb. 3 to Feb. 8.

Fairgoers pored over paintings, furniture, antiquities, textiles and jewelry from 70 high-end international dealers. The Lesters organized parties each night, including the preview benefiting the Norton Museum of Art; a black-tie dinner for collectors at Mar-a-Lago, the ocean-front mansion built by Marjorie Merriweather Post; and a gala honoring Florida museum directors at the Flagler Museum. They bused in collectors from Naples and Sarasota and offered lectures by art experts and popular decorators like Mario Buatta. A concierge arranged visits to museums and set up golf dates for out-of-towners.

“We’ve done 50 fairs but never had one this successful,” Mr. Lester said. “We took the best of the formula used by Art Basel Miami and Maastricht and enhanced it by adding the social component.”

It seemed to work. Despite low expectations, there were some important sales: Adelson Galleries sold “Winfield’s Porch,” an Andrew Wyeth tempera on board, from 1983, reportedly for more than $5 million. Other noteworthy sales included an Etruscan bronze by Royal-Athena Galleries; a 17th-century Mexican tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl inlaid chest by Arita Gallery of Buenos Aires; Suzani and ikat textiles by Gallery Afrodit of Ankara, Turkey; and a Tiffany Studios peony lamp from 1900, sold by Macklowe.

Pictures sold better than decorative arts. Hollis Taggart sold two Ellsworth Kelly paintings on paper from 1976; Gallery Thomas of Munich sold a small bronze sculpture by Max Ernst; Jacques Bailly of Paris sold a Jean Dufy painting. M. S. Rau sold a Monet, “Pine Trees at Varengeville” (around 1882), reportedly for $1.2 million. Erik Thomsen sold Japanese hanging scrolls and an important 18th-century screen. Dickinson of London sold a Bonnard painting.

The fair didn’t please everyone. “There was not enough furniture and too much contemporary art,” said Lars Bolander, a Palm Beach dealer. “To me, it’s not an antiques show, and it’s not an art fair.”

The Lesters are not the only ones who know how to put on a major fair. Brian and Anna Haughton of London have organized Art Antiques Design Dubai 2009, which runs from Wednesday through Feb. 22. It will feature 40 dealers from the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

The Haughtons, with their partner, the online auction site 1st Dibs (1stdibs.com), asked Stephen Miller Siegel, a New York architect and decorator, to create four room settings, both modern and traditional, with antiques borrowed from the dealers.

They also are hosting, with the Dubai Ladies Club, a women-only preview, for those who are more comfortable shopping only among women. Like the Lesters, the Haughtons are pulling out all the stops.